Meeting Title: Brainforge Engagement Planners Q&A Session Date: 2026-01-05 Meeting participants: Casie Aviles, Amber Lin, Ashwini Sharma, Uttam Kumaran, Pranav Narahari, Clarence Stone, Mustafa Raja
WEBVTT
1 00:00:11.750 ⇒ 00:00:12.770 Uttam Kumaran: Hi, guys.
2 00:00:14.640 ⇒ 00:00:15.380 Ashwini Sharma: Hello.
3 00:00:17.110 ⇒ 00:00:19.020 Uttam Kumaran: Missed you this morning, Ashwini.
4 00:00:21.020 ⇒ 00:00:22.250 Ashwini Sharma: Oh, man.
5 00:00:35.920 ⇒ 00:00:39.089 Uttam Kumaran: Hello! Good to see you, long time.
6 00:00:44.380 ⇒ 00:00:46.449 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, who else are we missing? Mustafa?
7 00:01:02.130 ⇒ 00:01:19.320 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. So, maybe, Clarence, I’ll go first on this one, and I’ll reiterate what you said. So, this meeting is, like, all of the engagement planners. I know Prano… I know, Ashwini, you missed a little bit of… of this morning, but I hope you kind of saw the message and were able to get caught up.
8 00:01:19.470 ⇒ 00:01:26.939 Uttam Kumaran: But this is the kind of the crew that’s, like, keeping everything organized. Part of the reason why you were…
9 00:01:26.970 ⇒ 00:01:34.350 Uttam Kumaran: selective to do this, is that you guys are… are really well organized, and I think also committed to that, but in addition, I think
10 00:01:34.350 ⇒ 00:01:48.879 Uttam Kumaran: this crew, like, there’s a lot of growth potential. I think everybody, you know, who ends up starting to lead will do a stint as an engagement planner, and I think it’s up to you guys to kind of tell
11 00:01:48.880 ⇒ 00:01:59.250 Uttam Kumaran: whether you want to go really deep in this world, or if you want to continue to move into CSO or into service lead. I’m not saying that this is anything less than that, but…
12 00:01:59.370 ⇒ 00:02:04.620 Uttam Kumaran: This will be the… most… for most folks, this will be their start into, sort of, the leadership ladder.
13 00:02:04.700 ⇒ 00:02:24.199 Uttam Kumaran: you know, at the company. But I mean, it’s also all folks that… I think two people are new, Ashwini and Pranav. But for Amber and Casey, you guys have seen a couple of iterations of how we’ve been doing things, and so I think this one I’m particularly excited about. But this converse… this kind of call is for y’all.
14 00:02:25.240 ⇒ 00:02:32.450 Uttam Kumaran: My job is to just answer any questions you have about, sort of, the responsibilities, and also help you
15 00:02:32.590 ⇒ 00:02:48.850 Uttam Kumaran: basically execute them. I also do a fair bit of EP work every day, whether it’s internally or externally, but of course, I’ve kind of done it for a long time. So my job is to answer questions. You have a specific question about a client, if you have a specific question about resourcing.
16 00:02:49.130 ⇒ 00:03:00.849 Uttam Kumaran: Like, Gantt chart, slides, whatever it is. I’m also happy to answer questions about your relationship with the other roles, which is CSO or the SLs.
17 00:03:02.350 ⇒ 00:03:08.190 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, this time’s kind of for you guys to ask, Ask me questions, and…
18 00:03:08.400 ⇒ 00:03:12.420 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of, like, or pose questions to the crew about how best we should
19 00:03:12.600 ⇒ 00:03:14.179 Uttam Kumaran: You know, we should win, so…
20 00:03:17.510 ⇒ 00:03:18.820 Amber Lin: Hello,
21 00:03:19.010 ⇒ 00:03:30.079 Amber Lin: I’ll start off. So, I read the responsibilities, and based on what we discussed this morning, I… I understand what the role is about, but I want… I just want to be clear of
22 00:03:30.080 ⇒ 00:03:39.780 Amber Lin: what the responsibilities are. I think the coordination tasks are very clear, of having linear setup, Notion setup, making Gantt charts are set up.
23 00:03:39.780 ⇒ 00:03:47.580 Amber Lin: those are very clear and more checkboxy things to do. Is there any more…
24 00:03:47.710 ⇒ 00:04:00.960 Amber Lin: tasks that’s more strategically involved, say, collaborating to create the Gantt charts and sourcing the ideas from, say, the,
25 00:04:01.100 ⇒ 00:04:12.520 Amber Lin: the client, or from the CSO, like, what about those tasks that’s a bit blurry, that’s on the lines? How do we… how do we define those? How do we make sure they’re clear?
26 00:04:15.180 ⇒ 00:04:16.630 Uttam Kumaran: Clarence, you wanna take it?
27 00:04:16.630 ⇒ 00:04:20.150 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I got it, I can take it. So, Amber,
28 00:04:21.709 ⇒ 00:04:36.970 Clarence Stone: you should always be collaborating with your CSO. Like, I think, you know, if you come up with plans, it should always be run through the rest of the other two leaders on that team. So, in that sense, I don’t expect you to be doing any of that alone.
29 00:04:36.970 ⇒ 00:04:46.390 Clarence Stone: Right? So you can say, hey, CSO, I’m about to start, you know, putting these plans together. Here’s my outline and concept. What do you think before I get started? Right?
30 00:04:46.530 ⇒ 00:05:11.200 Clarence Stone: if you need to have a phone call, you can hop on a call to discuss that, and then once the work product is done, or you’re stuck, or you want to work together with the CSO to do it, you can set up a meeting to do that. So the approach of how is going to be so different from project to project, so it’s hard to exactly give you a definite step-by-step on how to do it, but what I can tell you is that your success is based on
31 00:05:11.200 ⇒ 00:05:14.109 Clarence Stone: Whether or not everything is running on time.
32 00:05:14.210 ⇒ 00:05:26.540 Clarence Stone: Right? So, you know, with anything in life, if you want to get something done, you have to put plans together, right? And you have to work with everybody that’s involved to make sure that that plan is working to
33 00:05:26.780 ⇒ 00:05:46.380 Clarence Stone: expectation, and that is really the whole gist of this role. You’re really the glue that keeps all of this together, and you can’t do it alone. It would be unreasonable or unfair to say that, you know, that you have to put all of this together. So, one, operate through consensus, work together to formulate those work products.
34 00:05:46.380 ⇒ 00:06:10.340 Clarence Stone: But also, you’re the eyes and ears of everything that’s happening, right? Because if tickets are done, it goes through you. If, client’s getting new services, it’s going through you. If, you know, in stand-up, the CSO says, hey, the client might be interested in buying this, like, the analysis is going to be introduced and still goes through you, right? And at that point, you have a lot of power to say, what can we do with this?
35 00:06:10.920 ⇒ 00:06:21.190 Clarence Stone: Right? You can say, oh, I have this new piece of information, maybe I should plan for that contingency. Or I’m looking at the ticket flow, and we’re actually starting to kind of get behind this week.
36 00:06:21.250 ⇒ 00:06:36.960 Clarence Stone: let’s ping the CSO and say, hey, I noticed this. Are these… or maybe the service leader, and say, are these tickets up to date? Is everyone actually updating their statuses, right? So, there’s so much that you can do proactively on top of the minimum base requirements.
37 00:06:36.960 ⇒ 00:06:46.669 Clarence Stone: The reason why we constructed it this way is to say, hey, if you are doing this, like, if your documents are up-to-date, the plans are accurate to their, like, currently.
38 00:06:46.750 ⇒ 00:07:02.369 Clarence Stone: then you’re doing really well, because you would have gone through that whole cycle of examples that I gave you, right? You’ve already worked with the CSO and the service leader to identify the health of the client relationship. You have already worked with the service leader to understand the ticket flow. Does that help?
39 00:07:03.780 ⇒ 00:07:05.760 Amber Lin: That does help,
40 00:07:06.380 ⇒ 00:07:20.579 Amber Lin: But I think, especially for those who are new to this role, there’s a lot of stuff that is quite vague and still quite in the air. I do think the examples do help. I think this is just something that we’ll have to…
41 00:07:20.820 ⇒ 00:07:32.470 Amber Lin: talk more about as we do it in the future, and we’ll have… we’ll start creating a list of examples, but I’m not sure if I can pinpoint it in now, and that’s understandable.
42 00:07:32.620 ⇒ 00:07:38.830 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and there’s always going to be things that we haven’t caught, documented, productionized, and made efficient.
43 00:07:38.830 ⇒ 00:07:56.969 Clarence Stone: Right? And that’s the beauty of this job, because there’s so much that can be added to the vault, there’s so much automations we can create, there’s standards that we still need to create, right? And this team, their biggest focus or challenge is going to be creating those rules or constructs of how you want to do
44 00:07:56.970 ⇒ 00:07:58.939 Clarence Stone: Delivery and planning.
45 00:07:59.090 ⇒ 00:08:08.720 Clarence Stone: So, Amber, right away, like, the one thing that I owe all of you guys is to give you guys guidance on what a great Gantt chart looks like, what a great,
46 00:08:08.810 ⇒ 00:08:22.510 Clarence Stone: up-to-date ticket looks like, right? Because without those standards, like you’re saying, it’s going to be a little difficult to know if you’re doing your job right or not. So this call is perfect. This call is perfect for you to actually highlight specific things.
47 00:08:22.510 ⇒ 00:08:28.890 Clarence Stone: I’ll add it to my backlog, and I’ll actually start creating some work products so that you can get standardized. So we will absolutely get there.
48 00:08:28.890 ⇒ 00:08:39.069 Clarence Stone: And I invite you to actually give me a running list of things to do, because, yeah, I know immediately these documents have to be done, but there’s probably a billion other things that we can also do.
49 00:08:39.360 ⇒ 00:08:53.930 Uttam Kumaran: Like, Amber, I actually think you should… we could probably get… I mean, maybe working once I give you as a CSO on the ABC client, like, all the things we’re doing. One thing that I would like to see from this team is how do we get, roadmaps that are longer than one month?
50 00:08:54.110 ⇒ 00:09:03.329 Uttam Kumaran: Like, how do we start to get into 2-3 month roadmaps that we can get sign-off on, that we can start to execute? That’s something I don’t think we’ve ever been able to… to do.
51 00:09:03.370 ⇒ 00:09:23.020 Uttam Kumaran: You know, I think there was a moment in where we got to, like, linear being really up-to-date, so I think that’s probably table stakes. But one of the key emphasis that I will have out of this team, as someone who’s gonna be CSO, is like, okay, how do you guys push your CSOs to get 3 months’ worth of roadmap?
52 00:09:23.100 ⇒ 00:09:26.139 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And get 3 months of roadmap, not just, like.
53 00:09:26.160 ⇒ 00:09:36.789 Uttam Kumaran: in the air, but actually written down, planned out, so that we can go to a client and say, here’s what we’re doing. Because the moment something new comes up, it’s much easier for us to say, cool, if we want that slotted in.
54 00:09:36.790 ⇒ 00:09:47.550 Uttam Kumaran: We either do it 4 months, or we need more budget for something, right? Versus continuing every month to pick something up in the air. That’s a great way, I think, for the engagement planner to, like, contribute
55 00:09:47.650 ⇒ 00:10:03.269 Uttam Kumaran: To, like, delivery source opportunity. But I also think it’s just nailing the basics, like… and I think, Amber, you… you… I’ve… I have no worries about you. I think for the folks that are new to this world, Ashwini, Casey, Pranav, Mustafa.
56 00:10:04.680 ⇒ 00:10:18.279 Uttam Kumaran: I think for y’all, it’s gonna be really making sure you learn how to plan effectively. But I think, Amber, you have a little bit of a leg up, so for you, it’s gonna be not only doing the basics, but it’s like, okay, what is, like.
57 00:10:18.280 ⇒ 00:10:31.479 Uttam Kumaran: what is V2 is, like, can we get 3 months of, like, a plan going, where now I can go to the client and say, we have 3 months of the plan, I create a reusable 3-month plan that now you can help me go sell, right? As, like, a 3-month sprint.
58 00:10:31.480 ⇒ 00:10:42.659 Uttam Kumaran: For, like, 50 grand to go do something, right? So you can start thinking in that… in that world. And so, anytime you have questions about, like, hey, okay, I want to start to think about how EP affects sales.
59 00:10:42.860 ⇒ 00:10:49.699 Uttam Kumaran: Or EPFX reusability. There’s all these different things that, you know, I can definitely help… help y’all think about.
60 00:10:52.880 ⇒ 00:10:57.839 Amber Lin: Cool. I have more questions, but I will let other people ask first.
61 00:10:59.260 ⇒ 00:11:09.400 Ashwini Sharma: Hey, thanks, Amber. One quick question. I just want to understand the workflow, right? Once we have identified a particular project with a client.
62 00:11:10.940 ⇒ 00:11:17.930 Ashwini Sharma: I want to understand, like, who fits in where. So, let’s say there is a project that we have identified.
63 00:11:18.510 ⇒ 00:11:23.369 Ashwini Sharma: And, that project can be broken down into multiple linear tasks.
64 00:11:24.310 ⇒ 00:11:29.260 Ashwini Sharma: Who is doing the breaking of things into smaller chunks?
65 00:11:30.010 ⇒ 00:11:32.469 Ashwini Sharma: Is it the CSO, or is it the EP?
66 00:11:33.310 ⇒ 00:11:35.470 Ashwini Sharma: No, I would… Yeah.
67 00:11:35.470 ⇒ 00:11:39.309 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so my vote would be it’s the EP and the service lead.
68 00:11:39.720 ⇒ 00:11:42.270 Uttam Kumaran: Because that’s the technical architect.
69 00:11:42.550 ⇒ 00:11:44.849 Uttam Kumaran: Who’s gonna give you guidance on, like.
70 00:11:45.200 ⇒ 00:11:54.699 Uttam Kumaran: how this is ultimately different ways of breaking things down. Ultimately, in that room, you are the voice of the client and the voice of the CSO.
71 00:11:54.820 ⇒ 00:12:01.169 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So, like, if you tell… if you tell the service lead, okay, we need to get as much done in 4 weeks.
72 00:12:01.460 ⇒ 00:12:08.500 Uttam Kumaran: then you’re speaking, like, okay, the CSO is probably pitching the client on, like, getting something done in 4 weeks, and your job is to tell
73 00:12:08.590 ⇒ 00:12:23.110 Uttam Kumaran: him or her, what is possible, right? So in my mind, part of that is, like, is working with either Awish or Sam or Robert to break down, which I know Pranav… like, maybe Pranav, you can give an example of, like, how
74 00:12:23.170 ⇒ 00:12:29.979 Uttam Kumaran: your breakdown sort of, conversations went with Sam. Maybe that’ll kind of give a real-world example to Ashwini.
75 00:12:31.410 ⇒ 00:12:38.170 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, let me think of one. With,
76 00:12:38.760 ⇒ 00:12:41.680 Pranav Narahari: with the MCP servers, I guess, maybe as an example.
77 00:12:41.860 ⇒ 00:12:45.850 Pranav Narahari: We were trying to figure out, like…
78 00:12:45.990 ⇒ 00:12:52.239 Pranav Narahari: there’s various ways that we could have integrated MCP servers into the application that we were building.
79 00:12:52.340 ⇒ 00:12:55.110 Pranav Narahari: And what we decided on was.
80 00:12:55.240 ⇒ 00:12:57.629 Pranav Narahari: Which the client doesn’t care about, is…
81 00:12:57.790 ⇒ 00:13:11.240 Pranav Narahari: essentially having a… instead of, like, a config file for each MCP server, we’re saving the configuration into, like, a database, which required a little bit more initial, like, technical effort.
82 00:13:11.340 ⇒ 00:13:30.579 Pranav Narahari: However, we felt like, based on, like, what this application requires, it’s going to, it’s gonna pay us back in the future. And so, that’s something where, like, the feature in and of itself is exactly the same. And so I kind of came in, like, maybe, like, yeah, and, like, we think about this example of, like.
83 00:13:30.810 ⇒ 00:13:49.730 Pranav Narahari: speaking kind of for the CSO, like, Utam kind of mentioned, like, okay, MCP servers are a must for this application. I come into the conversation with Sam with that information, and Sam mentions, like, okay, well, we have, like, a multitude of MCP servers, we foresee these increasing in the future, so let’s…
84 00:13:49.780 ⇒ 00:13:55.560 Pranav Narahari: Design this software such that it can, like, take that into consideration.
85 00:13:57.720 ⇒ 00:14:09.749 Pranav Narahari: And then based on that, like, I have to make different tickets. It’s not just, like, creating individual configuration files, we need to then create a model for a database that can save all of these, MCP servers.
86 00:14:11.230 ⇒ 00:14:17.190 Ashwini Sharma: Got it. And where does the task assignment, once you break down a work into smaller chunks.
87 00:14:18.040 ⇒ 00:14:25.989 Ashwini Sharma: who does the task assignment to various developers, or if it is just the EP, then I think that’s straightforward, but…
88 00:14:26.220 ⇒ 00:14:28.860 Ashwini Sharma: If somebody else has to be involved, yeah.
89 00:14:29.890 ⇒ 00:14:45.770 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, I was kind of doing that on my… I was assigning those tasks. Actually, that was something that I asked today as well, because right now, the contributors for Lilo, like, for writing code is me and Sam, and so just kind of understanding, like, okay, what is everybody’s bandwidth for the week?
90 00:14:45.810 ⇒ 00:15:02.120 Pranav Narahari: On this, project. And so, yeah, I confirm with Tom, like, okay, mine is X number of hours, Sam’s is Y, so then I know roughly, like, what features will require what amount of, hours, and so then I can just assign them accordingly.
91 00:15:05.100 ⇒ 00:15:20.419 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I feel that’s, like, totally reasonable. I think, like, you’re the… you’re the first line. If you need… if you have questions on who’s capable of doing something, who’s the best at doing something, who else in the org can do something, you should go to the SL. But what you’ve seen here is we’ve built, sort of, like.
92 00:15:20.570 ⇒ 00:15:38.229 Uttam Kumaran: Plan A, B, C, for a lot of different scenarios. Like, for example, CSO is Plan A on the client meeting, but guess what? I know, Pranav, I’m out, I know you can run the Lilo meeting, right? And so, there’s all these backup plans. I think, similarly, the EP should try to assign it first.
93 00:15:38.270 ⇒ 00:15:52.870 Uttam Kumaran: If you have… if you have worries, then you go to, like, sort of, what is the architect, or the sort of CTO equivalent, which is, you know, away SAM, and they’ll tell you, like, who’s capable of doing what. And then by doing that a couple times, you’ll end up learning, like, who can do what, you know?
94 00:15:53.060 ⇒ 00:15:55.189 Uttam Kumaran: I think that’s… that’s totally fine.
95 00:15:57.180 ⇒ 00:16:02.230 Amber Lin: I had a follow-up question on resourcing earlier. Sorry, I cut you off. Go ahead.
96 00:16:03.470 ⇒ 00:16:04.679 Ashwini Sharma: Go ahead, go ahead, I’m done.
97 00:16:04.680 ⇒ 00:16:17.600 Amber Lin: Okay, okay. So for resourcing, will we get what the people on my team, has available on a per month basis?
98 00:16:18.470 ⇒ 00:16:24.340 Amber Lin: And if there’s resourcing conflicts, who is responsible, and who do I reach out to?
99 00:16:24.660 ⇒ 00:16:30.310 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so we’re gonna start doing a bi-weekly meeting between this team and operations.
100 00:16:30.450 ⇒ 00:16:35.220 Uttam Kumaran: So… Operations is going to be, like, the…
101 00:16:36.400 ⇒ 00:16:43.570 Uttam Kumaran: I won’t say owner, but they are gonna have the answers for you on resourcing, like, who is available.
102 00:16:43.730 ⇒ 00:16:45.699 Uttam Kumaran: ultimately, I would…
103 00:16:45.950 ⇒ 00:16:57.930 Uttam Kumaran: and Clarence, you can tell me if this is what you’re thinking, you guys should discuss. You know, if it’s between you guys, you should discuss. If there are other CSOs that need to get looped in, you should loop them in.
104 00:16:58.080 ⇒ 00:17:01.379 Uttam Kumaran: But ultimately, if you guys are like, hey.
105 00:17:01.780 ⇒ 00:17:08.919 Uttam Kumaran: we worked with a plan with my CSO. I need someone that is good at, like, developing AI apps.
106 00:17:09.190 ⇒ 00:17:15.439 Uttam Kumaran: okay, who do we have available, and how much time do they have available? I need someone for 20 hours for the next.
107 00:17:15.560 ⇒ 00:17:17.199 Uttam Kumaran: 8 weeks.
108 00:17:17.410 ⇒ 00:17:27.539 Uttam Kumaran: you’ll go to operations, say who is available. They may say, well, so-and-so’s in between projects, so-and-so’s here, and then… then you can sort of figure that out. But I almost, like, want to connect you with ops.
109 00:17:27.619 ⇒ 00:17:39.180 Uttam Kumaran: who’s gonna be own… the owners of, like, the measurement, and the fact that, like, that data is up to date. And then, at that point, if you have enough, if, like, someone’s wide open, then you can totally…
110 00:17:39.280 ⇒ 00:17:45.990 Uttam Kumaran: basically make that move. Otherwise, if you need to ask, then I think you can collaborate directly with, like, the CSOs on the project.
111 00:17:46.650 ⇒ 00:17:55.209 Amber Lin: Oh, sounds good. So also, on the same note of hours and resourcing, are we, held accountable for
112 00:17:55.210 ⇒ 00:18:07.209 Amber Lin: the amount of hours we end up each week with. So, for our team, say we have budgeted total 15, are we responsible for keeping that on track, or is the ops team responsible for that?
113 00:18:08.600 ⇒ 00:18:10.729 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t know, Clarence, did we lay out margin?
114 00:18:10.730 ⇒ 00:18:29.600 Clarence Stone: So, just for clarification, is this, like, a question of, like, margin, Amber? As in, like, you did your planning with your team, the CSO and the SL, and you guys decided that it was going to be 15 hours, but then you ran into an issue, and you blew through those hours, and used, like, 22 this week, and you’re gonna need 22 next week.
115 00:18:29.610 ⇒ 00:18:32.640 Clarence Stone: Right. Is that the situation you’re talking about?
116 00:18:32.920 ⇒ 00:18:48.320 Amber Lin: Essentially, because our hours are directly reflected in project margin, we could just talk in hours terms or in profit terms, but ultimately is, am I going to hold my team accountable for staying at a certain hours?
117 00:18:48.720 ⇒ 00:18:56.459 Clarence Stone: So, one, that shouldn’t be the focus. That metric is the measurement of health on your reality to plan.
118 00:18:56.560 ⇒ 00:19:03.739 Clarence Stone: Right, so saying, like, hey, we’re 15 hours, right, is the plan that everybody thought this task was going to take.
119 00:19:03.810 ⇒ 00:19:19.850 Clarence Stone: Right? And what’s frustrating, for people outside that are gonna have to, you know, kind of tackle this problem is they don’t understand why it took more than 15 hours. Your job as the EP is to be able to explain exactly that. Know why.
120 00:19:19.890 ⇒ 00:19:24.109 Clarence Stone: That something that you projected as 15 ended up being 22,
121 00:19:24.170 ⇒ 00:19:33.839 Clarence Stone: Right? And bring that up to say, hey, we went over, that’s totally okay. But without that intelligent, like, information on why.
122 00:19:33.840 ⇒ 00:19:52.379 Clarence Stone: and how we can possibly support you in that, it’ll be very hard, you know, for someone to come in and suggest solutions. So, like, Amber, the answer isn’t a tactical if-this-then-that, but rather understand, you know, why didn’t something go to plan? And what can we do about that?
123 00:19:52.860 ⇒ 00:19:57.420 Clarence Stone: Right? That’s why your metric is plan to actuals.
124 00:19:57.560 ⇒ 00:20:04.780 Clarence Stone: Right? Not because we want it to always be perfect, but… but because we want to know why things didn’t go to plan.
125 00:20:07.440 ⇒ 00:20:19.559 Amber Lin: I see. So, you’re saying that each week, essentially, my responsibility is to be able to provide the insight on the difference between projection and reality,
126 00:20:19.670 ⇒ 00:20:30.769 Amber Lin: but not necessarily to correct them, or do I also take the follow-up action of, I would require these resources, or we need to cut out these?
127 00:20:30.770 ⇒ 00:20:39.779 Clarence Stone: Yeah, yeah, so you’re… okay, so there’s just, like, two major things. If you do the first part, you will crush it in this quarter as a EP.
128 00:20:40.160 ⇒ 00:20:42.040 Clarence Stone: Because you already know.
129 00:20:42.160 ⇒ 00:20:49.719 Clarence Stone: the health of your projects, and why they’re not hitting those metrics, right? That’s immense success from day one.
130 00:20:49.720 ⇒ 00:21:06.640 Clarence Stone: Two, if you take the proactive stance to just ping your team, the SL and the CSO, and say, hey, we’re falling off plan pretty significantly, I looked into it, I think this is why, can we set up a 30-minute call to decide on how we can, you know, course correct here?
131 00:21:06.660 ⇒ 00:21:21.270 Clarence Stone: Right? Have that session with your team, come up with options A, B, and C, ping UTAM and say, hey, here’s your menu of 3 options, this is the problem, this is why it is an issue, right? And help us pick what we should do next.
132 00:21:21.480 ⇒ 00:21:32.109 Clarence Stone: I mean, that’s level two, that’s the next level of maturity there as an engagement planner. I hope everyone here kind of gets that concept, right? One is understand why plans to actuals didn’t work.
133 00:21:32.110 ⇒ 00:21:47.299 Clarence Stone: Right? And the why behind it is super important, because then you can proactively approach other people in the team, or other people in this organization, and say, hey, this is a problem we’re facing, this is the conditions to why that’s a problem, right? And these are the solutions that we’re thinking about.
134 00:21:47.420 ⇒ 00:21:50.020 Clarence Stone: You know, can you help us pick the right solution?
135 00:21:51.760 ⇒ 00:21:55.100 Uttam Kumaran: Things are going to go off rail, always.
136 00:21:55.360 ⇒ 00:22:02.280 Uttam Kumaran: The thing you should not do is try to buy towards preventing it from going off rail. It’s to just catch it early.
137 00:22:02.640 ⇒ 00:22:08.400 Uttam Kumaran: it… things will go off rail, like, Pranav, you’re seeing Lilo’s stuff change, but you’re seeing how I’m, like.
138 00:22:08.550 ⇒ 00:22:18.189 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of jumping and thinking about, like, what they want, and sort of telling them, well, like, you want option 2, option 3, or you want a whole pie?
139 00:22:18.200 ⇒ 00:22:34.359 Uttam Kumaran: And here’s why the whole pie is so kind of super awesome. You kind of see how I’m like, but without, like, without me getting those hour estimates from you this morning, I couldn’t have had that conversation. In fact, where I messed up is I didn’t… I didn’t get you to get the Phase 2 estimates done yet, or the Phase 3.
140 00:22:34.360 ⇒ 00:22:42.530 Uttam Kumaran: Because I really would have been able to show Feb and, like, March and April, and then been like, okay, you want April by Feb?
141 00:22:42.560 ⇒ 00:22:46.060 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, I need 20 grand a month, I need 20 additional grand a month.
142 00:22:46.220 ⇒ 00:22:55.050 Uttam Kumaran: But you see how, in that moment, I was… I’m… as a CSO, I’m as limited as my most extended plan, because I can only dance
143 00:22:55.130 ⇒ 00:23:06.310 Uttam Kumaran: within the next month right now, right? But you saw, even within that, I still dance, and I got us to, like, be like, okay, if I can buy two weeks back, they said they… they want the two weeks, like, if they can buy the time.
144 00:23:06.450 ⇒ 00:23:24.179 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s, like, that’s a good example of where being able to do that plan really, really worked out, but I… I don’t… plan is never gonna go… it’s… things are never gonna go according to plan. It’s our job to be very transparent when things don’t, and to show options, right, to everybody involved. What are the options? What are the options?
145 00:23:24.200 ⇒ 00:23:34.549 Uttam Kumaran: CSO may push to, like, speed things up. The service lead may say, there’s no way you can deliver something worthwhile. You will have to find, you know, that middle ground and be like, here’s what we’re doing.
146 00:23:34.720 ⇒ 00:23:42.330 Uttam Kumaran: Additionally, like, look, the… part of the reason y’all exist is, if your CSO is out.
147 00:23:42.370 ⇒ 00:23:55.590 Uttam Kumaran: you know, or… or can’t be there, y’all are the second line of defense. And so it’s really important that you know the plan really well, you know what we’re delivering. But what I’ve… what we’ve tried to take off your plate is the stress of, like.
148 00:23:55.770 ⇒ 00:24:01.769 Uttam Kumaran: Going to that client meeting, getting bombarded with questions, sort of having to figure that out, and that is something that
149 00:24:01.770 ⇒ 00:24:17.990 Uttam Kumaran: if that’s the direction you want to go, this is the easiest path to get there. It’s also the best way, and a safe way to learn whether this is, like, you want to be more client-facing, or you want to sort of go, like, kind of the path for, you know, that Awash and Sam are on… on the service side. So this is kind of why we built
150 00:24:18.080 ⇒ 00:24:19.640 Uttam Kumaran: This role in this way.
151 00:24:20.670 ⇒ 00:24:34.869 Uttam Kumaran: And also, for folks that are new, like Pranav for you, Ashwini, like, I could see you guys going either way, but I can’t… I don’t want to jam you. And so, I want you guys to see it. As fast as you’re like, I can take it, I’ll hand it, that’s yours.
152 00:24:34.920 ⇒ 00:24:45.080 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s not fair… I don’t… I didn’t feel like it was fair for me to throw you into there, and also just figure out, like, how our company works, and how things are working.
153 00:24:45.100 ⇒ 00:25:02.020 Uttam Kumaran: But our conversations, you know, will always be like, okay, where do you guys feel like you’re fitting? I would say we… we are still… like, this role in itself has so much depth to plan deeper. We don’t work on projects that are, like, we’re not working on, like.
154 00:25:02.570 ⇒ 00:25:14.629 Uttam Kumaran: projects with 4 or 5 work streams, 20 or 30 people, year-long things, like, that’s how… that’s… our projects, when I go… if I was to go sell, like, a project that’s, like, 200 grand a month.
155 00:25:14.750 ⇒ 00:25:31.069 Uttam Kumaran: you’re gonna find it’s like, oh my god, I don’t think I can EP more than, like, one or two of these, because it’s very complex. Right now, because our projects aren’t so complex in their depth and in their, like, width, you can EP easily, but there’s… I would say don’t,
156 00:25:31.300 ⇒ 00:25:39.700 Uttam Kumaran: don’t sleep on how… how much planning can really go into complex engineering work. Like, I want us to go take on the
157 00:25:39.760 ⇒ 00:25:54.459 Uttam Kumaran: scope that is longer, technical work that is really complicated, and stuff where we really… like, this crew really has to think about the plan, and how do you give the CSOs, the SLs, and the client, like, things to trade off, right?
158 00:25:54.620 ⇒ 00:26:06.540 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I think there’s just a lot… there’s a lot more depth than we have right now on it. Mainly because I haven’t pushed for us to think, like, 3, 6 months, but I’m… we’re gonna go do scopes for clients that are gonna be years to a year long.
159 00:26:07.070 ⇒ 00:26:13.209 Uttam Kumaran: So, we’re… I want… we’re gonna work on that 2-year Gantt chart, you know? That’s what it’s gonna take to win that.
160 00:26:17.190 ⇒ 00:26:22.449 Uttam Kumaran: Like, think about the difference if we had to have 10 people on a client, For a year-long project.
161 00:26:22.790 ⇒ 00:26:37.030 Uttam Kumaran: how much complexity is going to go into, like, planning that, right? So, like, that’s… that’s how this… this sort of role changes. Some people may be obsessed with that, some people are like, cool, I was able to do that, now I want to move more client-facing. Cool, I was able to do that, now I kind of want to go more into service, you know?
162 00:26:42.780 ⇒ 00:26:44.619 Pranav Narahari: I have a good question. Yeah.
163 00:26:44.990 ⇒ 00:26:58.899 Pranav Narahari: Lutam, I saw that you added, like, a… kind of, like, a Lilo sync for, like, CSO and EP, and so I also kind of did the same thing with Sam to do, like, right after that, basically, like, based on that info, kind of…
164 00:26:59.030 ⇒ 00:27:07.040 Pranav Narahari: mapping everything out into, like, weekly stuff, or seeing how things affect, the next week versus just the project in general.
165 00:27:07.740 ⇒ 00:27:09.680 Pranav Narahari: In terms of, like…
166 00:27:10.070 ⇒ 00:27:20.260 Pranav Narahari: getting the info from the client, right? So, like, a lot of the information comes from client meetings, but also just… and maybe this is just for Lilo, like, it seems like we get a lot of feedback via Slack.
167 00:27:20.430 ⇒ 00:27:25.000 Pranav Narahari: And so… Should I be, like…
168 00:27:25.210 ⇒ 00:27:32.629 Pranav Narahari: Also, looking over Slack and just, like, looking at, like, what your response was to just, like, assess how that changes the scope for the week.
169 00:27:32.800 ⇒ 00:27:44.439 Pranav Narahari: Is that just kind of to my discretion, like, how I want to do things, or do you see, like, a… I guess, like, an optimized way of, like, monitoring Slack per project?
170 00:27:46.280 ⇒ 00:27:59.440 Clarence Stone: So, that communication loop should also be handled on your stand-ups now, right? Because, let’s just say yesterday you did a client presentation, right? CSO should be giving you an update. Hey, we did the presentation.
171 00:27:59.440 ⇒ 00:28:15.990 Clarence Stone: This is what we presented, this is how the client reacted, this is, you know, I think, you know, how we need to pivot or change, or everything looks great, right? So, yes, definitely keep track of that Slack, but for now, like, don’t sweat too much. Your CSO should be telling you those things in stand-up as well.
172 00:28:16.000 ⇒ 00:28:19.500 Clarence Stone: Right? Because it changes the dynamics of the plan.
173 00:28:19.500 ⇒ 00:28:41.659 Clarence Stone: CSO should always be reporting the vibes, right? And you’re gonna have to adjust based on vibes. So, if the vibe change wasn’t up to date, then someone else is kind of slacking, right? So, I… but naturally, what I would do if there was a meeting is just follow up and ask, right? Like, you told him I went to a meeting today, and after it, I was like, hey, how do you think it went?
174 00:28:41.660 ⇒ 00:28:51.920 Clarence Stone: Right? Which parts do they, you know, seem to have more interest in? How should we pivot our presentation next time? Like, those are natural, good follow-ups that you should have as a team across the board.
175 00:28:51.930 ⇒ 00:28:58.810 Clarence Stone: Right? Yeah. But if they’re not happening naturally, that’s okay. I expect it to happen at standout. Must, must happen at standout.
176 00:29:01.080 ⇒ 00:29:03.330 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think it’s gonna be up to, like.
177 00:29:03.840 ⇒ 00:29:11.119 Uttam Kumaran: I also think you have to build some camaraderie with, like, whoever your CSO is, like, I’m not expecting anybody to read every message.
178 00:29:11.570 ⇒ 00:29:15.450 Uttam Kumaran: But if you ask me, like, what’s the latest, I can tell you the latest in, like, 10 seconds.
179 00:29:15.760 ⇒ 00:29:19.299 Uttam Kumaran: So, that’s, like, my… that’s the way I’m gonna work.
180 00:29:19.430 ⇒ 00:29:30.709 Uttam Kumaran: And that I’m gonna come to stand-ups and give my thing. I also encourage people to read what’s going on. Eventually, in, like, probably, like, mid this year.
181 00:29:30.820 ⇒ 00:29:35.499 Uttam Kumaran: We already scrape all that. We’ll end up scraping and building some things that help
182 00:29:35.780 ⇒ 00:29:42.109 Uttam Kumaran: the EP, the CSO, like, manage. Part of this will be, like, summarize everything that’s happened in Slack today.
183 00:29:42.230 ⇒ 00:29:50.659 Uttam Kumaran: And… and its impact on our timeline, for example. So, that could be, like, how the AI is gonna affect this. That way, you…
184 00:29:51.060 ⇒ 00:29:59.310 Uttam Kumaran: You also… you can, like, sort of not worry about Slack, still come to the stand-up here for me, and then be like, okay, cool, I have all the info I need.
185 00:29:59.450 ⇒ 00:30:08.129 Uttam Kumaran: But you’ll kind of get a sense. Some of the CSOs may just always be in meetings. Some clients also only do things like…
186 00:30:08.580 ⇒ 00:30:15.279 Uttam Kumaran: some clients do things via email, so it’s… it’s kind of… it will depend. But I’m not at any moment expecting, like.
187 00:30:15.720 ⇒ 00:30:29.550 Uttam Kumaran: 24-hour SLA on, like, every single item. I would say the one thing to keep up to date is linear, because ultimately, if everything goes to waste, like, you can… you can literally select all tickets in linear.
188 00:30:29.690 ⇒ 00:30:30.650 Uttam Kumaran: And, like.
189 00:30:30.900 ⇒ 00:30:39.580 Uttam Kumaran: like, you have every… you have all the context you need, and the change… the change logs, right, to rebuild whatever you need. So that’s, for me, the last stand.
190 00:30:41.380 ⇒ 00:30:49.309 Uttam Kumaran: And, look, as a CSO, if I pull up linear, then everybody gets bored, so it’s a good way… that’ll be how I hide, basically, if, like, I don’t know that the Gantt chart
191 00:30:49.320 ⇒ 00:31:02.369 Uttam Kumaran: Because it’ll still show that we do a lot, but that’s how I’ll be like, oh yeah, we have all this stuff set up, it’s all going well, versus, like, if a Gantt chart does not end up, there’s five lines. It’s, like, pretty obvious.
192 00:31:02.460 ⇒ 00:31:09.849 Uttam Kumaran: But see, again, life is, like, this life is about, like, figuring out what people like to see, how they like to see it.
193 00:31:09.960 ⇒ 00:31:13.560 Uttam Kumaran: Like, this for Lilo, for example.
194 00:31:14.150 ⇒ 00:31:18.409 Uttam Kumaran: We… this is where every meeting, it’s gotta be, like, 80% show and tell.
195 00:31:18.730 ⇒ 00:31:34.940 Uttam Kumaran: like, they don’t give a shit about a Gantt chart, or about slides, or anything. I did… I got us this meeting today, but, like, the next meeting we gotta come with, like, that we came two meetings ago, or 3 meetings ago, with, like, hell of features done, right? Because that’s what they’re gonna love.
196 00:31:34.960 ⇒ 00:31:46.829 Uttam Kumaran: you could tell, like, anytime they start getting distracted, like, that’s how these guys are. So part of it is figuring out who we’re talking to. We have other clients who are not like that at all. They… they don’t…
197 00:31:47.380 ⇒ 00:32:01.939 Uttam Kumaran: they really, like, will never log in to see the code base, they’ll never see the right SQL, all they want is the deck, and the plan, and, like, font the right way, like, so part of this is figuring that out.
198 00:32:03.800 ⇒ 00:32:04.510 Pranav Narahari: Gotcha.
199 00:32:07.720 ⇒ 00:32:08.260 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
200 00:32:10.080 ⇒ 00:32:14.369 Uttam Kumaran: What else? Casey, Mustafa, Shwini, so are you guys also clear on, like.
201 00:32:15.010 ⇒ 00:32:18.429 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of goals for this week in terms of, like, deliverables?
202 00:32:25.740 ⇒ 00:32:29.109 Ashwini Sharma: No, no, I’m not, I’m not… can you, can you give…
203 00:32:31.390 ⇒ 00:32:35.819 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, did you take a look at the… at the document, especially, like, the EP?
204 00:32:36.240 ⇒ 00:32:36.560 Ashwini Sharma: Oh, yeah.
205 00:32:36.560 ⇒ 00:32:38.090 Uttam Kumaran: day in the life? Okay.
206 00:32:39.360 ⇒ 00:32:40.460 Mustafa Raja: Oh, yeah.
207 00:32:40.460 ⇒ 00:32:42.710 Uttam Kumaran: Tell me what was unclear, yeah, yeah, go ahead.
208 00:32:43.300 ⇒ 00:32:49.240 Ashwini Sharma: Oh, okay, so basically, as an EP, what’s the deliverable? Was that the question?
209 00:32:51.210 ⇒ 00:32:52.230 Ashwini Sharma: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
210 00:32:52.230 ⇒ 00:32:53.049 Uttam Kumaran: Clear, yeah.
211 00:32:53.050 ⇒ 00:32:54.920 Ashwini Sharma: Yeah, that is clear, yeah.
212 00:32:55.250 ⇒ 00:32:57.510 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, but what… tell me what’s not clear.
213 00:32:57.900 ⇒ 00:33:03.169 Ashwini Sharma: Yeah, I mean, like, what exactly am I supposed to work on as a developer, right? That part was not clear.
214 00:33:03.300 ⇒ 00:33:04.419 Ashwini Sharma: But, yeah, but you’re…
215 00:33:04.420 ⇒ 00:33:07.999 Uttam Kumaran: So, but, so, so the biggest thing is, oh, okay, so…
216 00:33:08.210 ⇒ 00:33:12.650 Uttam Kumaran: So, again, one thing I’ll mention is these are not, like… you’re not just…
217 00:33:12.860 ⇒ 00:33:30.590 Uttam Kumaran: the EP. Like, EP is… that’s what your project role is on the client, but you’re still doing work. You’re still developing your normal work. You now have a role in deciding how long it takes and the linear organization of it, but because most of our clients are typically just 3 people.
218 00:33:30.680 ⇒ 00:33:34.519 Uttam Kumaran: you may find that there is no IC on many clients.
219 00:33:34.670 ⇒ 00:33:51.970 Uttam Kumaran: But Eden, for example, does have 2 ICs, and as we grow, clients will have 5 to 7 people, 10 people. We’re not gonna… we’re not necessarily thinking about adding more project roles at this moment, but there will be more ICs that come on every project.
220 00:33:53.140 ⇒ 00:34:00.590 Uttam Kumaran: But again, I think your role as an EP is, I think, pretty clear in the day in the life.
221 00:34:00.690 ⇒ 00:34:13.600 Uttam Kumaran: But again, if you’re talking about what you’re doing on a project, that I would say you have to… you should work with the CSO on. And if I’m the CSO on your project, then we can talk about that today or tomorrow.
222 00:34:13.600 ⇒ 00:34:14.190 Ashwini Sharma: Me too.
223 00:34:14.540 ⇒ 00:34:15.360 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
224 00:34:15.909 ⇒ 00:34:19.379 Uttam Kumaran: I think the other thing I wanna… maybe I can speak to…
225 00:34:19.540 ⇒ 00:34:22.400 Uttam Kumaran: maybe I’ll just take the one thing.
226 00:34:22.530 ⇒ 00:34:25.789 Uttam Kumaran: And I can give it to… back to you, Casey, Mustafa.
227 00:34:25.820 ⇒ 00:34:42.869 Uttam Kumaran: Is I’m just sort of thinking about allocations, and I think one thing here that you… there’s a lot of is, like, Ashwini is listed as, like, as an EP on CES, on… on Element, as well as on Element Martech,
228 00:34:42.920 ⇒ 00:34:46.740 Uttam Kumaran: on Eden Martech, Eden Strategy, Magic Spoon.
229 00:34:47.110 ⇒ 00:34:59.050 Uttam Kumaran: this makes me nervous. Like, I think this is quite a lot. My… my thing that I told Clarence is I would like to see Casey and Mustafa, how you guys can start to take some of these on. Like, I think…
230 00:34:59.550 ⇒ 00:35:07.479 Uttam Kumaran: Casey, like, I told Zoran that… Zoran, kind of mentioned to me that he definitely needs someone paired with him on a lot of his MarTech work.
231 00:35:07.540 ⇒ 00:35:21.640 Uttam Kumaran: And I would like to kind of see you there. Mustafa, I would like to kind of see where else you want to fit. But that’s how I’m gonna… and we can make changes now, whenever, but, like, I think in particular, handling more than…
232 00:35:21.850 ⇒ 00:35:27.489 Uttam Kumaran: Like, handling more than 4 clients in a project role may be tough at the moment.
233 00:35:27.510 ⇒ 00:35:43.110 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m ex… I’m interested to see, like, how you can… how this team can work to make sure we… we all feel comfortable. In addition, there’s other clients coming, so, like, for… for Amber, and for Pranav, I’m excited to see, like.
234 00:35:43.340 ⇒ 00:35:56.279 Uttam Kumaran: which direction you guys… how you guys want to take on more, how you guys want to take on clients where maybe you want to go one direction or the other. So, this is what I’m… I’m gonna come… if we don’t have any topics for the meeting, I’m gonna come with
235 00:35:56.280 ⇒ 00:36:06.120 Uttam Kumaran: how are we growing? Like, how are we getting deeper and better as EPs? And how am I getting you to the place that you want to go? Whether it’s horizontal, or whether it’s
236 00:36:06.120 ⇒ 00:36:16.219 Uttam Kumaran: you know, vertical. And so that’s always what’s gonna be top of mind for me, and that’s gonna… if nobody comes to topics, I’m gonna ask that, like, are we comfortable with our workload?
237 00:36:16.230 ⇒ 00:36:22.519 Uttam Kumaran: how has the work to date helped you decide how you want to evolve, and how can I get you there, you know?
238 00:36:28.420 ⇒ 00:36:28.990 Casie Aviles: Yeah.
239 00:36:28.990 ⇒ 00:36:29.760 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
240 00:36:29.760 ⇒ 00:36:35.660 Casie Aviles: Yeah, go ahead, Casey. I’m open to, taking on an EP role. I’m just not…
241 00:36:36.150 ⇒ 00:36:39.730 Casie Aviles: Super confident yet with, with, with data stuff.
242 00:36:39.940 ⇒ 00:36:49.700 Casie Aviles: I think, yeah, if needed, yeah, I can, I can… take on an EP role.
243 00:36:50.400 ⇒ 00:36:57.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so that’s why I think the MarTech role is actually a little bit in between data work and, like, integration work.
244 00:36:57.960 ⇒ 00:37:02.810 Uttam Kumaran: So I actually… I don’t know, Clarence, if there was a reason
245 00:37:03.310 ⇒ 00:37:09.490 Uttam Kumaran: that we labeled Ashwini here, but I mean, I would honestly be… I would be open to having a meeting
246 00:37:09.610 ⇒ 00:37:11.550 Uttam Kumaran: Casey, between, like.
247 00:37:12.140 ⇒ 00:37:23.180 Uttam Kumaran: basically, I would urge you to… and I also already mentioned this to Zoron, but I would say, hey, you should message Zoron and Robert, and say, hey, I’d like the EP role on the Eden Martech project.
248 00:37:23.360 ⇒ 00:37:26.649 Uttam Kumaran: What do you think? Because Ashwini’s already on, like, a lot.
249 00:37:27.010 ⇒ 00:37:31.510 Uttam Kumaran: So my job… my first job is to think about how do we get him into a reasonable amount.
250 00:37:31.840 ⇒ 00:37:34.089 Uttam Kumaran: You know, like a safe amount.
251 00:37:34.450 ⇒ 00:37:37.979 Uttam Kumaran: So, I would urge you, if you feel… if you, like…
252 00:37:38.300 ⇒ 00:37:43.589 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I would honestly say you should just send that right now. You should just DM both of them, or an engineering, you should say, hey.
253 00:37:43.710 ⇒ 00:37:48.700 Uttam Kumaran: Ashwini’s on, 5 projects. I’d like to…
254 00:37:48.980 ⇒ 00:37:56.260 Uttam Kumaran: be the EP on any Martech projects. I see that there’s one for Element, and I see that there’s one here for,
255 00:37:56.880 ⇒ 00:38:03.360 Uttam Kumaran: this, can you tell me more about what Martech is? I can send you, sort of, like, the service thing that,
256 00:38:04.520 ⇒ 00:38:08.810 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll find it, I can send you, like, what the service…
257 00:38:08.980 ⇒ 00:38:13.170 Uttam Kumaran: description is for Martech, I think it could be good for you to check it out.
258 00:38:14.030 ⇒ 00:38:17.570 Casie Aviles: Yeah, definitely. This is unfamiliar for me.
259 00:38:18.680 ⇒ 00:38:20.770 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I’m gonna… I’ll send you this.
260 00:38:28.080 ⇒ 00:38:29.540 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, take a look at this.
261 00:38:30.750 ⇒ 00:38:35.429 Uttam Kumaran: Zoran wrote this, so this is what he’s… this is what he’s gonna be… what we’re gonna be selling.
262 00:38:35.830 ⇒ 00:38:39.940 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think you’ll like it. I think it’s interesting. And…
263 00:38:40.120 ⇒ 00:38:46.209 Uttam Kumaran: Visually, without learning anything, it’s kind of, like, sandwiched behind. It’s actually a lot of the data production.
264 00:38:46.520 ⇒ 00:38:48.010 Uttam Kumaran: For attribution work.
265 00:38:49.070 ⇒ 00:38:49.630 Casie Aviles: Okay.
266 00:38:50.180 ⇒ 00:38:50.710 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
267 00:39:05.650 ⇒ 00:39:07.460 Uttam Kumaran: Mustafa, anything on your side?
268 00:39:09.720 ⇒ 00:39:15.249 Mustafa Raja: Not for now, but I will have questions when I start working on this stuff.
269 00:39:18.360 ⇒ 00:39:23.780 Mustafa Raja: I’ll… I’ll set up a meeting with, Demi and Awash, sort of plan.
270 00:39:24.190 ⇒ 00:39:27.990 Mustafa Raja: Our, dashboard workstream.
271 00:39:28.270 ⇒ 00:39:29.230 Mustafa Raja: Brugant.
272 00:39:29.440 ⇒ 00:39:30.749 Mustafa Raja: And she handles.
273 00:39:34.090 ⇒ 00:39:34.690 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
274 00:39:35.690 ⇒ 00:39:36.270 Mustafa Raja: Yeah.
275 00:39:40.990 ⇒ 00:39:42.219 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
276 00:39:45.610 ⇒ 00:39:46.600 Uttam Kumaran: What else?
277 00:39:49.680 ⇒ 00:40:04.020 Amber Lin: I was gonna ask, I know Insomnia is… the contract’s not active anymore, so I’m on, I’m EPing for, essentially, two work streams on ABC, and also Honey Stinger.
278 00:40:04.210 ⇒ 00:40:09.269 Amber Lin: Would you… would you like me to sync with Casey?
279 00:40:09.400 ⇒ 00:40:20.269 Amber Lin: to off-board the EP role on Andy, and pick up some other strategy-related clients’ EP? Do you think that’s a good direction to go?
280 00:40:21.080 ⇒ 00:40:22.859 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe let’s take a look.
281 00:40:23.110 ⇒ 00:40:29.460 Uttam Kumaran: And… I guess my instinct is probably not to make a change.
282 00:40:29.900 ⇒ 00:40:33.260 Uttam Kumaran: Until, like, 2 weeks from now, in terms of swapping.
283 00:40:33.840 ⇒ 00:40:39.170 Uttam Kumaran: more what I’m trying to do is just get people to fill in the gaps, and then if anyone’s overloaded.
284 00:40:40.310 ⇒ 00:40:49.109 Uttam Kumaran: to, like, kind of take over. So I think having you on these is fine. I mean, if we look at the other strategy work, it’s unfortunate because
285 00:40:49.310 ⇒ 00:40:58.260 Uttam Kumaran: these are the two strategy projects, and they’re both sort of, like, on pause. However, there is gonna probably be a strategy opening for…
286 00:40:58.390 ⇒ 00:40:59.390 Uttam Kumaran: Readme?
287 00:40:59.610 ⇒ 00:41:03.120 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re gonna find out this week if they’re gonna sign the renewal.
288 00:41:03.400 ⇒ 00:41:06.029 Uttam Kumaran: Insomnia, I’m not so sure.
289 00:41:06.210 ⇒ 00:41:07.960 Uttam Kumaran: What’s gonna happen?
290 00:41:09.410 ⇒ 00:41:14.930 Uttam Kumaran: Additionally, the ABC work, like, this is gonna turn into probably anywhere from 2 to 4 projects.
291 00:41:15.310 ⇒ 00:41:17.039 Uttam Kumaran: Like, 2-4 work streams.
292 00:41:17.260 ⇒ 00:41:19.269 Uttam Kumaran: So this is just gonna, like, blow up.
293 00:41:19.420 ⇒ 00:41:23.000 Uttam Kumaran: So… Probably after this month.
294 00:41:23.350 ⇒ 00:41:28.050 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m kind of expecting, Amber, you to be… Here…
295 00:41:29.930 ⇒ 00:41:33.630 Uttam Kumaran: And kind of help… basically help me make that a reality.
296 00:41:33.810 ⇒ 00:41:40.170 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I’m kind of hoping that between you and, like, Zoran.
297 00:41:40.460 ⇒ 00:41:47.250 Uttam Kumaran: And me, on this project, we’re gonna take this, we’re gonna pitch a menu of, like, follow-up work, And…
298 00:41:48.090 ⇒ 00:41:52.530 Uttam Kumaran: It’ll be kind of up to you. It’ll basically land in your lap on which ones you want to take.
299 00:41:52.900 ⇒ 00:42:01.280 Uttam Kumaran: So that would probably be my gut instinct, is just, like, Let’s crush… These ones…
300 00:42:01.440 ⇒ 00:42:04.130 Uttam Kumaran: And then, anything else that…
301 00:42:04.580 ⇒ 00:42:15.020 Uttam Kumaran: looks like it’s getting into strategy, like, I think it’s… I think it’s basically yours. We don’t have a strategy… right now, we’re looking to try to get a strategy service lead.
302 00:42:15.470 ⇒ 00:42:21.710 Uttam Kumaran: And we’ll most likely end up needing another sort of, like, data analyst.
303 00:42:23.770 ⇒ 00:42:37.720 Uttam Kumaran: But, as you can see, like Casey, we… we’ve kind of been looking for, like, a MarTech EP, so that’s… that’s sort of wide open as well. But these are sort of, like, the roles that are, like, we’re… we’re thinking about. This one, actually, Luke has kind of taken this one.
304 00:42:38.530 ⇒ 00:42:49.050 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s what I would suggest, like, if I was to say anything about this month, is that you go… basically go all-in on… try to go all-in on this, because this is probably going to turn into 2-4 work streams.
305 00:42:49.430 ⇒ 00:42:56.089 Uttam Kumaran: That, like, I can… you can honestly, if you want to go CSO, you could probably take one… take one or two of them yourself.
306 00:42:56.690 ⇒ 00:42:59.110 Uttam Kumaran: And then I would put some… I would put an EP under you.
307 00:43:01.020 ⇒ 00:43:02.320 Uttam Kumaran: That’s my opinion.
308 00:43:02.320 ⇒ 00:43:03.799 Amber Lin: Sounds good. I’m glad.
309 00:43:03.800 ⇒ 00:43:06.619 Uttam Kumaran: That’s my game theory on how to do this this month.
310 00:43:06.890 ⇒ 00:43:11.740 Uttam Kumaran: Because I also… I also just don’t know yet. There’s a lot of moving parts to this, so…
311 00:43:12.010 ⇒ 00:43:16.469 Uttam Kumaran: I’m almost like, nail these. If insomnia comes back, you’re still in there.
312 00:43:16.840 ⇒ 00:43:20.710 Uttam Kumaran: But… I’m telling you, we’re gonna make,
313 00:43:21.130 ⇒ 00:43:23.189 Uttam Kumaran: Probably gonna make 5X the money.
314 00:43:23.420 ⇒ 00:43:28.270 Uttam Kumaran: on this one than we will… we… than we… we would have ever made on insomnia to date.
315 00:43:29.140 ⇒ 00:43:33.969 Uttam Kumaran: So… like, unless Robert comes back to me that they’re trying to, like.
316 00:43:34.460 ⇒ 00:43:37.690 Uttam Kumaran: double or triple their engagement, I probably will not.
317 00:43:37.890 ⇒ 00:43:43.170 Uttam Kumaran: I probably will push back on even working. Not that I don’t think we delivered great work.
318 00:43:43.390 ⇒ 00:43:44.870 Uttam Kumaran: They are stingy.
319 00:43:45.320 ⇒ 00:43:49.989 Uttam Kumaran: And they fired everybody we… they’re basically gonna fire everybody we worked for.
320 00:43:52.580 ⇒ 00:43:55.169 Uttam Kumaran: I love cookies, I think they’re a great company.
321 00:43:56.260 ⇒ 00:43:59.380 Uttam Kumaran: They’re not taking the medicine, so what do you do, you know?
322 00:44:00.170 ⇒ 00:44:02.920 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know how you feel, I’m actually curious how you feel, like…
323 00:44:03.260 ⇒ 00:44:04.889 Amber Lin: About insomnia?
324 00:44:04.890 ⇒ 00:44:05.550 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
325 00:44:07.650 ⇒ 00:44:13.720 Amber Lin: We were just about to go into the juicier stuff, because we were only doing campaigns, and then it stopped, so…
326 00:44:13.720 ⇒ 00:44:16.030 Uttam Kumaran: I told Robert to try to hire Birdie.
327 00:44:19.300 ⇒ 00:44:21.299 Amber Lin: Priority for campaigns?
328 00:44:21.300 ⇒ 00:44:28.889 Uttam Kumaran: for Brainforge, like, she should come work at Brainforge and do what she does for Insomnia for a bunch of clients. Because, you know, she’s a consultant.
329 00:44:29.380 ⇒ 00:44:34.250 Amber Lin: She, yeah, she told me she’s a contractor, and she’s essentially doing two people’s work.
330 00:44:35.080 ⇒ 00:44:39.999 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, she should… you should… next time you talk to her, tell her to quit, and then she can just come work for us.
331 00:44:40.540 ⇒ 00:44:41.779 Amber Lin: For other people, like…
332 00:44:41.790 ⇒ 00:44:46.820 Uttam Kumaran: She can come do all of ABC’s emails and all of their content, and she can have a blast.
333 00:44:47.280 ⇒ 00:44:52.590 Uttam Kumaran: And it’d be way easier, it’ll be way easier, and then all the numbers will go up for ABC.
334 00:44:54.250 ⇒ 00:45:02.049 Uttam Kumaran: I’m very serious, actually, and I’ll… you can get a recruit… you can get a recruiting bonus. I don’t know what our… what our recruiting bonus is.
335 00:45:03.880 ⇒ 00:45:06.119 Amber Lin: I’ll let her know we need a marketer.
336 00:45:06.380 ⇒ 00:45:07.240 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
337 00:45:13.550 ⇒ 00:45:27.900 Clarence Stone: So, I mean, a couple things I want to cover. One, I just want to reinforce that you guys are not alone in this, right? There are 3 people on this… 3 other… 2 other leaders, 3 total, on… on every project. So.
338 00:45:28.090 ⇒ 00:45:33.879 Clarence Stone: It shouldn’t be that you feel on an island to come and pull these plans together, right?
339 00:45:33.900 ⇒ 00:45:52.930 Clarence Stone: We do know that we need to make sure all our documentation is squared away, and that the Gantt charts are done, and linear tickets are full up. You know exactly that needs to happen, so pull in your teammates, right? Tell them, hey, this is the objective, this is what I think we need to do, this is what we should talk about, right? These are the question marks that I have.
340 00:45:52.930 ⇒ 00:45:56.570 Clarence Stone: In order to put this plan together and start driving towards it.
341 00:45:56.570 ⇒ 00:46:10.919 Clarence Stone: you, you know, EP, this role is that beating heart of a project that is driving the cadence and momentum that’s involved, so if there’s no movements happening right now on formalizing documentation for projects.
342 00:46:10.920 ⇒ 00:46:27.339 Clarence Stone: start making those meetings, start asking questions, start creating, you know, group chats to make sure that you have all the right information to get started, and then create some checkpoints in between with your team to formalize and finish those plans together, right? So, one, you’re not alone.
343 00:46:27.640 ⇒ 00:46:30.550 Clarence Stone: Two, like.
344 00:46:30.650 ⇒ 00:46:48.850 Clarence Stone: as a leader, a lot of things are gonna change, and all for the better. For example, like, in this first quarter, we’re gonna be closely monitoring everything that’s happening on every single project, right? So, one of two things happen when that happens. Like, you guys are on top of it, you’re making your decisions and executing well as a team.
345 00:46:48.850 ⇒ 00:46:51.860 Clarence Stone: Then you get to make your own decisions on how the plans work out.
346 00:46:51.860 ⇒ 00:46:59.980 Clarence Stone: Right? Things fall behind, and, you know, we notice, and we have to fix it. Well, sometimes you’re not gonna like plans that somebody else gives you.
347 00:47:00.190 ⇒ 00:47:18.060 Clarence Stone: Right? So, you have the power to make that plan, take ownership of it right now, and, you know, work towards that outcome. You’re not alone, we’re here to help you, and, you know, if you understand, if you can at any point answer the direct question, how are things going on this project?
348 00:47:18.320 ⇒ 00:47:20.490 Clarence Stone: You’re doing really well at this job.
349 00:47:20.790 ⇒ 00:47:33.440 Clarence Stone: Right? If you can answer that to say, hey, we just talked to the client yesterday, they’re super excited about X, Y, and Z, we are here in the milestones, these are the tickets we’re working on, you can answer those four questions, you’re crushing it.
350 00:47:34.270 ⇒ 00:47:39.500 Clarence Stone: But you can’t answer those alone. You gotta talk to your teammates and other leaders, right?
351 00:47:47.680 ⇒ 00:47:48.270 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
352 00:47:49.670 ⇒ 00:48:01.839 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect. So, I’ve told you guys to put pressure on your CSOs and SLs, I’m telling every other team the same thing, right? So it’s all the Spider-Man meme, but I’m telling you to do that. Like, this only works, it’s like a…
353 00:48:01.840 ⇒ 00:48:11.579 Uttam Kumaran: You guys, if you took physics or whatever when you were in school, you know, when you make the bridge, they all have to kind of put pressure on themselves to kind of stay up.
354 00:48:11.650 ⇒ 00:48:18.360 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s what I’m kind of thinking about, healthy amount of tension. Like, we… you don’t want to see a lot of… we don’t want to see a lot of agreeing, because then
355 00:48:18.500 ⇒ 00:48:37.360 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll end up disagreeing. And so we do want to… this is not… this… we have to think about these as trade-offs, but ultimately, we’re all fighting for different parts of the client, you know? One team’s fighting for things to be built reliably, one team’s fighting for things to move faster and get delivered faster and cheaper, one team’s fighting for things to go according to plan.
356 00:48:37.390 ⇒ 00:48:39.450 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And so these were all, like, different…
357 00:48:39.960 ⇒ 00:48:42.750 Uttam Kumaran: things pulling on success, so… cool.
358 00:48:43.080 ⇒ 00:48:45.699 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll do this weekly,
359 00:48:46.750 ⇒ 00:48:58.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I… I feel great. This is… this is lovely. I think great questions. Please keep slacking me. I think I’m gonna… I also wanna… would love to see people send in, like, GANTs or linear tickets for review.
360 00:48:58.600 ⇒ 00:49:14.370 Uttam Kumaran: This team is also probably most ripe for a lot of automation, right? Because a lot of this work is actually going from unstructured data into structured plans, understanding the impacts of new information on structured plans. So try to leverage AI. We have a lot of stuff we’ve already built on that.
361 00:49:14.390 ⇒ 00:49:19.240 Uttam Kumaran: That’s why this team, I think, has… there’s an edge here on, like, getting really good at
362 00:49:19.270 ⇒ 00:49:21.570 Uttam Kumaran: Using cursor to modify
363 00:49:21.730 ⇒ 00:49:30.559 Uttam Kumaran: linear and, you know, trying to figure out how we can get something more… getting a more programmable Gantt chart, but I think there’s a lot of opportunity for automation, so…
364 00:49:31.150 ⇒ 00:49:32.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, perfect.
365 00:49:34.220 ⇒ 00:49:38.810 Amber Lin: Could we have a demo for the cursor stuff you mentioned next?
366 00:49:39.220 ⇒ 00:49:41.499 Amber Lin: For some time for the whole company.
367 00:49:41.940 ⇒ 00:49:44.179 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe I’ll just try to do tomorrow.
368 00:49:44.390 ⇒ 00:49:45.150 Uttam Kumaran: Sometime.
369 00:49:46.740 ⇒ 00:49:51.100 Amber Lin: That would be nice, because I… I don’t know how to use that with linear yet.
370 00:49:51.840 ⇒ 00:49:57.819 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool, so I’ll go through how to use it with Linear, how to use it with Notion, how to draft SOWs.
371 00:49:58.090 ⇒ 00:50:03.880 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll try to go through, like, 5 or 6 different use cases. What you’ll see is you’ll see, like, how I kind of, like.
372 00:50:04.520 ⇒ 00:50:13.490 Uttam Kumaran: just… I’m not trying to… what I wouldn’t take away is, like, copying my prompts more in that, like, looking at the workflow, but I’ll… let’s do one tomorrow.
373 00:50:13.650 ⇒ 00:50:17.410 Uttam Kumaran: And I’ll just invite whoever can make it, and then I can send it out.
374 00:50:19.290 ⇒ 00:50:22.240 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, because it’s, like, just saving my whole life, like…
375 00:50:23.730 ⇒ 00:50:26.140 Uttam Kumaran: It’s the best… it’s the best product ever.
376 00:50:27.770 ⇒ 00:50:34.459 Uttam Kumaran: I wish I could run the whole company out of cursor. Like, I wish everything got put in a repo, and everything gets run out of cursor.
377 00:50:34.660 ⇒ 00:50:37.220 Uttam Kumaran: one day.
378 00:50:38.090 ⇒ 00:50:38.870 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
379 00:50:39.620 ⇒ 00:50:41.500 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I’ll… I’ll talk to you soon, then.
380 00:50:42.700 ⇒ 00:50:43.519 Mustafa Raja: Thank you.
381 00:50:44.240 ⇒ 00:50:45.010 Casie Aviles: Thank you.
382 00:50:45.290 ⇒ 00:50:46.060 Ashwini Sharma: Thank you.